I've finalized the ad extremum idea of STL support of smart pointers such as shifted_ptr which is a good example to use because of the distinct types it is using as pointer types (T *, shifted<T> *, shifted_allocator::pointer, etc.). I have 2 patch files that can be used as an example to add support for real smart pointers using Gcc's STL. These are located in the bits/ folder. These are Gnu related but I wanted to share this here for objectivity. I have added special contructors in shifted_ptr that takes raw pointers (T *) instead of the type safe shifted<T> *. This is temporary until I add the proper casts inside the STL code. What else? I simplified shifted_allocator and fixed abominable bugs in shifted_ptr created by these temporary constructors added. Now I'm pretty dang happy about it... There are still some I need to fix and some more are yet to be found but it should be much easier now. Once again I am using shifted_ptr_test2.cpp as my main test application. Later, -Phil